North Korea's Joy Division

Joy Division unearths one of North Korea’s most tightly guarded secrets: a state-controlled system that conscripted young women into sexual servitude for the ruling Kim family and inner elite—under the guise of patriotic duty.

Established under Kim Il-sung and expanded by Kim Jong-il and Kim Jong-un, the so-called “Joy Division” selected girls based on beauty and loyalty. Trained in music, dance, and espionage, they disappeared behind palace gates to serve in the regime’s secret service called Section 5 where they were forced to perform both publicly and privately for the regime’s most powerful men.

For the first time, four survivors from across several generations of the Kim regime step forward —Kim Youngsoon, Oh Young-hee, Kim Seo-ah, and Han Su-ae—share their full stories with unflinching clarity, speaking openly to an international audience about a system long shrouded in rumor and silence. The voices of these four women join a
growing chorus demanding the world recognize North Korea not only as a nuclear threat, but as a site of deep, systematic abuse of women trapped behind its propaganda veil.

Drawing on exclusive testimony and rare archival materials, Joy Division is a cinematic reckoning of a regime that weaponized femininity to consolidate power—and systematically erased the women who knew too much.